


We All Still Die

by not_mom



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But damn if they aren't interesting, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I'm not saying the terror twins are good or deserve sympathy, Lydia's POV, Probably even more vague than that, Second Person, TAZ Balance, The Adventure Zone: Balance, Wonderland, kravitz is keats, lich emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 20:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14244867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_mom/pseuds/not_mom
Summary: You see your baby brother.He's wearing the suit you buried him in.Lydia-centric thing for the Kravitz is Keats theory! Griffin McElroy can say it's not true until he's blue in the face, it's a great concept.





	We All Still Die

You see your little brother. He is wearing the suit you buried him in, and he looks healthier than you've seen him look since he was six, and he is _resplendent,_ filled to the brim and glowing with holy energy. There are small differences to be sure, and even the passage of centuries isn't enough to stop you from picking them out. The golden beads in his braids. The molten gold of his eyes. The way his eyes are clear and sad, and the way he isn't breathing (isn't struggling to breathe), and the confident set to his posture. He's filled out and looks _healthy,_ and if you could smell you get the impression that he'd smell like wood or the outdoors or something besides stale sweat and sickness. It's... good, and what's left of your heart feels full for the first time in a long while.  
"Hello, Lydia," he says, and nods, and looks at your brother hovering next to you. "Edward." For a moment, you think that he's here for a chat and that you have your baby brother back. In a roundabout way, maybe, not in the way you intended when you tried to replace his heart, but back nevertheless. 

"Hi, Keats." You grin at him, flashing maybe a little too much tooth to be properly playing the part of a doting older sister, and you feel Edward giving a small wave beside you. For a long moment, silence hangs between the three of you. The lights you spent so long perfecting pulse behind you in a frenetic pattern that comes off as eerie without the music that's meant to accompany it. 

"You understand who I serve now?" He looks between the two of you, shuffling in place. Something about the way his cloak moves with him reminds you of a bird adjusting its feathers, and you recoil instinctively, hit with a sudden terrible understanding of just what your baby brother has become. You've killed clerics and paladins before, you've destroyed emissaries of the Raven Queen without breaking a sweat. (Not that you can sweat.) But you've never been worthy of a _reaper,_ and you think that the goddess of death must be crueler than you ever dreamed if she's sending the only thing left in this world that you and Edward love to destroy you. 

"Darling, what did she do to you?" Edward sounds aghast, and if you weren't so stunned yourself, you'd be surprised to hear some real emotion in his tone. Keats frowns, carding a hand back through his hair, beads in his braids clacking softly against one another. 

"She saved me from what the two of you did." 

"Keats." You want to say more, starting to reach for him, but he cuts you off with a sharp shake of his head, setting his jaw in a way that you recognize from when he learned to play violin, then flute, then anything he could get his hands on. 

"Kravitz. My name is Kravitz. Are you going to come quietly?" 

You blink at him, despite not needing to, then laugh, throwing a hand out to gesture to all you've built. "Of course not! Darling, you see what we've built. We aren't _forcing_ anyone to participate, and we aren't going to destabilize and kill any of your precious mortals anytime soon."

"We love you, but you aren't _you_ any longer." Edward shakes his head then drifts upwards, lazily heading towards what you know is a room designed for combat. A room where more than a few would-be heroes have died. It's a good plan, it's the plan you would have used, and you go to follow. After all, it's not as if you can kill your little brother again. He's beyond that now. 

In another, better lifetime, you'd have some compassion left in you. In another, better lifetime, you'd stop yourself from following Edward to the battle room and from activating it when your little brother follows you, scowling like you've just told him that, no, he can't go see the symphony. Never mind that your decision was because he could barely walk across the room without needing to rest. But this is not another, better lifetime. This is your lifetime, and the hand you've been dealt and the choices you've made mean you follow Edward up and let Keats (Kravitz, listen to him, trying to sound so grown up) follow and you're the one to snap your fingers and call forth a horde of electrified ghasts that will drain the vitality from him until he needs to slink back to his goddess and re-form. 

You don't feel bad, watching him fight. If anything, you feel the same way you feel when you watch adventurers fail. You feel powerful. Emboldened. Awash with the energy that only someone's _suffering_ can bring you, not guilty in the slightest over the fact that it's your little brother you're killing. 

He screams, once. It's a mixture of surprise and fury as one of your beasts slips through a gap in his not-unimpressive defense, narrowly missing the flash of his scythe to get in close and rip a chunk out of his constructed form where his shoulder meets his neck. The ghast falls, of course, lightning sparking on its fingers as it tries for one last swipe and turns into smoke. But it's got to him, and it's rattled him, and you only watch impassively as your baby brother is overwhelmed. 

He meets your eyes before he goes. He lifts his chin in defiance, and you can read, clear as day, clear as your mind was when you made the decision to try to save him, your own soul be damned, the sentiment. You've killed him again, and you won't be forgiven this time. Against a technicolor neon background, your baby brother wavers then fades into a wisp of soft light. He leaves a single father where he fell, and as Edward dismisses the ghasts, the two of you exchange a look. Neither of you move to pick it up. 

"Well, damn." He speaks first, and as the two of you retreat back to your catwalk, you catch a glimpse of a frown. "I never would have imagined that the bird bitch would take him." 

"I suppose it's good we have all this now." You can only shrug, trying to remember what betrayal feels like. Is this what betrayal feels like? You gave everything- your soul, your life, your good name- for your little brother, and he looks at you like a monster. "Shame that he's not going to join the team. You ready?"

"Always." Edward smooths a glamour on and all at once he's magnificent, bright and gaudy and personable. "Let's take these suckers for all they're worth." 

\--

Later, much later, as you're feeling your brother being torn to shreds by a lich who is bright and angry and alight with the drive to protect her brother, you think that she is what you were, once.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a piece on tumblr by the-nothing-maker that really stuck with me, give it a look if you too want to get emotional about the terror twins even if you don't particularly believe/support the Kravitz = Keats (Keetz? Cleats?) idea
> 
> http://the-nothing-maker.tumblr.com/post/157549324215/you-see-your-baby-brother-hes-wearing-the-suit


End file.
